Summer League Practice – Schröder Joins Hawks

Friday, July 12, 2013

By Jaryd Wilson

The third day of Hawks Summer League practice had a similar feel to the first two days, but with one additional face – Dennis Schröder.

Shortly after officially signing his contract with Atlanta, the first-round draft pick from Germany joined his Summer League teammates and didn’t seem to miss a beat. Schröder was vocal, pushed the pace and seemed to easily pick up the offensive concepts that Coach Bud’s staff have been implementing since Tuesday. He also seems to have a good rappore with the rest of the guys and is having fun, which is important.

Adjusting to the NBA style of play will be Schröder’s biggest challenge this summer. He’s undersized for an NBA point guard, so how he attacks the bigger players on both ends of the floor will be something to watch.

Quin Snyder focused early in practice on getting players more reps without a defense. With the learning phase of the offensive system in place, repetition and detail appear to be the next point of emphasis for the staff. The increase in reps allowed for some of the newer, less experienced players to work more closely with the coaches on what to tweak.

Mike Scott did very well in the half-court sets. He definitely has a bounce in his step and is playing like the leader he’ll have to be on a team with eight rookies.

Shelvin Mack also seems to be gaining confidence by the practice. He and John Jenkins have both shown the ability to create shots for themselves when things break down offensively. Mack also did very well defensively against the quicker Schröder. Mack told us he wanted to work on his defense this summer, and guarding Schröder for 11 straight days will certainly help with his footwork.

You may be familiar with the name Sergiy Gladyr. We drafted him 49th overall in 2009, and he was on our Summer League roster in 2010. The Ukrainian has a terrific shot and a sweet crossover dribble. He’ll be fun to watch if Snyder gives him the minutes.

I thought Boban Marjanovic had another good practice. The 7’3″ Serbian doesn’t need to jump to dunk, as he proved several times today. As I mentioned before, he’s a bit slow and has trouble keeping up with faster bigs in the open court, so he’ll have to play in short spurts. I think he can be effective if the coaching staff limits his minutes though. He was a rebounding machine today.

Today was the fourth practice, but the first time Coach Bud spoke to the team as a group. He talked about working within a system that he and the coaches have been trying to set up, and that he’s looking for guys who want to compete and play with each other.

The team will have one more practice this evening before tomorrow’s 6 p.m. ET tip against the Clippers.